This morning I received an e-mail that I had been chosen to join the Geek News Central Team. At first I was ecstatic to pickup a spot in a great Internet news source, but then I realized, my passive days of Internet surfing were gone.
In past career endeavors I managed a newspaper and worked as a journalist. I spent my down time like most trying to hone my craft and learn from others. A lot of that time was spent reading online post from sites that I respected and enjoyed visiting. I’ve spent the better part of the day trying to figure out what my first post on the site would be, after re-reading most the of the site’s history to make sure I wasn’t duplicating something that had already been discussed, I was at a lose.
I wanted to post on my social media sites, that I had finally gotten the opportunity I wanted since I had left the old media company I worked for, but I decided to hold out until I had published my first post.
After reading Geeknewscentral.com for hours on end I saw some posts that intrigued me, mainly around social media sites.
I currently earn my living as a private IT consultant. The first thing I do each morning is check my Email, iGoogle RSS Home Page, Facebook, and Twitter updates to see what posts I’ve missed since last time I’ve checked.
While each one has there purpose I think each one is invaluable to me in my day-to-day life.
Email – It is my direct connection to clients, press releases, and the occasionally long uncle who has left millions of dollars to me.
IGoogle – This is the place I read about the new from the different blog that I follow, most of them specific to one type of technology or another.
Facebook – This is where I catch up with past and current friends to see what is going on in their lives. By far this is the most rewarding of any place I visit, due to the mere fact that I know these people and to be able to reconnect with these people after many years and miles is the definition of the magic of the Internet.
Twitter (The Internet Stepchild) – While this is the most debated source of information on the Internet and the most static filled of them all, I find this the best place to find the most current news on the web. While the argument can be made that this is just a place for people to “sell” themselves as stars, I find that the benefit of using Twitter is all based on whom you follow. If you are following people in the “know” or people that care about technology then you are far more likely to get valuable pieces of information far quicker then the average person and a far lower signal to noise ratio then those that follow the Oprah-Shaq-JplusK combo.
My basic point is the Internet as whole is a tool where each thing is meant to fill a specific void and I don’t think that one tool will be perfect to meet the criteria of one person.
Again this is first post of hopefully mainly on this site, so please let me know what you think. I can be reached at jparie@gmail.com.
